mini grid

Last week I set up a small crystal grid on my beautiful Nyxturna
altar tile to bring in some much needed protection + emotional
well-being + loving energy. The crystals I chose are selenite and rose
quartz. 💗

Yesterday I set up another small crystal grid on my beautiful Nyxturna
altar tile, this time in honor of the Spring Equinox / Ostara. The
crystals I chose are rose quartz, selenite, and my favorite smoky quartz
point. I also have pink chrysanthemums which are supposed to symbolize a
long life and good luck in the home. 🌸✨

And yes, as you can see I’m doing a small giveaway in celebration of this. Not gonna lie, I’ve been delaying this for a while, but it’s better late than never. Right?

Included in it are some of my favorite supplies and stationery of all time. I picked these items specifically to maximize book bag space as much as possible. With the school year beginning right around the corner, I’m sure you guys would also like to receive some free supplies 😎.

I am still in the process of determining if I want to make this giveaway international. This is only because I’ve never shipped anything to anyone before. If I am not able to figure out how international shipping works before I announce the winner, do not worry. I will have future giveaways that are bigger and better which you are more than welcome to participate in.

Giveaway will close Monday, August 14th. I will make an announcement in a separate post saying that I have messaged the winner. If you don’t want to miss any important updates, follow the tag #probablystudying1k

Yesterday marked one year of my blog, my very first post featured my lined journal and my only fountain pen. And now I have my dotted journal and plethora of fountain pens to write with. Quite a bit of difference isn’t there? Day 17 of the December challenge by @journaling-junkie

In Kenya, a company called Solar Wind East Africa is building five solar-powered stations to pump water and make electricity for rural livestock farmers. In Benin and Tanzania, byproducts of making agricultural goods like palm oil and cocoa are being fed into new mini-grids that generate up to 50 kilowatts of electricity for homes and businesses. And in Uganda and Mozambique, the sun and biogas are fueling refrigeration systems desperately needed by small-scale farmers to bring crops and milk to market.

Across Africa, homegrown and international technology trials are sprouting up to help farmers make more income and grow more and better food. Which of these will end up being widely adopted is still anybody’s guess, but there can be no doubt that focused agricultural innovation and education efforts will unlock huge dividends around the continent.

Africa holds about 60 percent of the world’s arable land, a natural resource that, if managed well, could easily provide the continent with enough food and more income from increased agricultural exports. Improving agricultural practices means a major upgrade in quality of life for many Africans due to the sector’s huge footprint around the continent. The World Bank says the typical farm economy for each country below the Sahara represents up to 40 percent of gross domestic product and 70 percent of the labor force.

“Agriculture is a proven driver of transformational change,” said the World Bank’s Juergen Voegele, head of the organization’s new Agriculture Global Practice.

Co-authored with Vrinda Manglik, Sierra Club Associate Campaign Representative, International Clean Energy Access World Bank energy investments are categorically failing to end energy poverty. That’s the stark finding of a new report released b…

That’s the stark finding of a new report released by Sierra Club and Oil Change International which measures how multilateral development banks (MDB) fare on their efforts to end energy poverty. The report benchmarked recent MDB investments in clean energy access against the breakdown of needed investment called for in the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) “Energy for All” scenario. In that scenario, universal energy access is achieved by 2030.

In an “Energy for All” scenario, the world’s largest development institution cannot fail, and yet the World Bank is doing just that. To succeed, this scenario requires 64 percent of all new investments be used to fund the fastest, least expensive, most effective energy source that will help alleviate energy poverty around the world. Distributed off-grid and mini-grid clean energy sources and systems are the source of that energy.

According to the article, key findings show that less than 10 percent of the World Bank’s energy funding targets the poor in particular, and yet this group of people makes up approximately 40 percent of the global population. Breaking it down further we find that of this 10 percent, only 25 percent of that is used to fund off-grid or mini-grid energy developments.

Not surprisingly, the World Bank received an F on its report card for energy access efforts.

This is majorly disappointing considering the heavy role that the Bank plays in global development. Goals are goals. Failing to meet our development and climate goals as individual states and as an international community has held us back for far too long. Still, this is the state of things.

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The World Bank is a vocal supporter of the United Nations Sustainable Energy for All (SE4All) campaign and also claims poverty eradication as a top priority for its investments. Failure is appalling.

But why is the World Bank falling so far short?

Peter Bosshard at International Rivers has pointed out, it’s structural. For instance a World Bank evaluation found in 2009 that “internal Bank incentives work against [efficiency] projects because they are often small in scale, demanding of staff time and preparation funds, and may require persistent client engagement over a period of years. This makes them less attractive to managers and agencies that use disbursement as a measure of action and large turbines as a visible symbol of achievement.”

As Peter goes on to point out, “Five years later, the Bank’s Quality Assurance Group castigated the institution’s ‘pressure to lend’, and pointed to the 'fear that a realistic, and thus more modest, project would be dismissed as too small and inadequate in its impact.”

The World Bank’s central problem is, according to author Bruce Rich, “a culture of loan approval, institutionalized in various perverse internal incentives.”

And so despite its nearly $4.1 billion annual energy portfolio, the World Bank has not even given $500 million in investments for beyond the grid clean energy markets.

That’s why despite having a nearly $4.1 billion dollar annual energy portfolio, the World Bank has failed to pony up a meager $500 million in investment for beyond the grid clean energy markets. And our analysis confirms that investment is enough to catapult this rapidly-growing market towards a $12 billion clean energy access marketplace that can end energy poverty in our lifetime.